Sanjaya Malakar in the American Idol hotseat again

MTV, Access Hollywood, and numerous other media outlets have been running stories this week questioning whether American Idol contestant Sanjaya Malakar deserves to still be on the show. One paper said, "Hair today, gone tomorrow," while another begged audiences to "Let Sanjaya go. Let Sanjaya go." On the other side of the coin, Howard Stern has put his support behind the 17-year-old singer, as did the votefortheworst website, which believes that Idol is more interesting if it keeps the weakest contestant on.

Brandon Rogers, the Idol contestant that was voted off last week, told us yesterday (March 20th) that he thinks all the Sanjaya bashing is unfair: "I love that kid. I feel so bad for him because he's just getting such a bad rap in the press right now. This is not his fault, you know, he's doing the best he can and people are beating him up and making it seem like it's his fault."

Whatever the reason he's still on, Sanjaya got his chance to perform again last night (March 20th) and will find out if he's staying or going on tonight's (March 21st) elimination edition of Idol, which airs at 9.

Another contestant that wants to make it past tonight is Blake Lewis. He said his goal is to make the Top 10: "Man, I really want to get in the Top 10. So, to me, that's my goal. If I can make it farther than that, America wants me to proceed, and you know...I don't know what my chances are. Let's leave that up to America."